Rolls and Rivalry by Kristy Boyce Series: Gaming and Romance #3
Published by Random House on May 5, 2026
Genres: Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 384
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Source: NetGalley
Roll the dice, strike up the band, and get ready for a swoon-worthy summer! A charming gaming romance that blends the magic of D&D with the camaraderie of band camp—from the bestselling author of Dating and Dragons!
Questing for love . . .
Hazel Buchanan has her senior year mapped out: Win respect as color guard captain, kick off her first D&D campaign, and steer clear of distractions. But her plan takes a critical hit when Max—her former best friend and longtime crush—returns to town with drumsticks in hand and an unexplained chip on his shoulder.
Hazel and Max can’t help bickering every time they’re together, and thanks to meddling parents, he’s invading her D&D game too. As Dungeon Master, she’s ready to shut him down, but D&D has a way of bringing people together like nothing else. Is this rivalry masking something more? With dice rolling and emotions spinning, Hazel might be in for more than she planned . . .
Whenever I see another entry in Kristy Boyce’s “Gaming and Romance,” I don’t need to roll for initiative—I’m reading it. I have been hooked on this series since the very first one, Dungeons and Drama. So I was really excited to see what kind of new Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) romance Boyce had cooked up, as all of them effortlessly capture the unique charm of the game and the people who enjoy it. Though it’s a cute and cozy romance with great geeky references sprinkled in, Rolls and Rivalry was my least favorite of the three books. It just didn’t work quite as well for me as the others.
The thing that I did not care for the most was how Dungeons & Dragons was implemented. The focus of Rolls and Rivalry was definitely on color guard and marching band, not D&D. That’s not a problem for me, but it was definitely a departure from the previous books in the series that I wasn’t expecting. I was happy to read in the author’s note that Boyce was in in color guard herself, so the book comes from actual lived-in experience, which always adds to the feeling of authenticity. Even though this was clearly a big part of Boyce’s life, the D&D aspect of Rolls and Rivalry felt forced and kind of tacked on to me. It felt like more of an afterthought or of a checking off of the requirement to be a part of the series than an actual fully developed part of the book. There is a campaign that happens eventually in the book, but the first implementation of the game is when main character Hazel, senior and captain of the color guard, has the members of color guard create characters for a hypothetical campaign.
I understand that this Hazel’s attempt at building rapport and teamwork with members of the color guard in the best way she knew how, but it just felt very contrived because she had never even played D&D herself. I had a bit of trouble suspending my disbelief at the idea of people who weren’t already interested in D&D agreeing to take part in this activity, at least with any actual enthusiasm. It was believable in the first book, Dungeons and Drama (which is still my favorite), because the main character was a theater kid, and the acting and storytelling was right up her alley. Obviously, I am ancient and have not been in high school for a long time—so I may be completely out of touch—but I was fairly skeptical of the idea of anyone wanting to be called by their character name in a public setting—let alone in high school—it seems akin to social suicide to me. Since the color guard is already butting heads with percussion, and even locked into a bet against them with fairly high stakes, I would think Hazel and the color guard crew would want to avoid giving percussion any more ammunition to use against them.
My favorite part of the implementation of D&D was Hazel’s struggle to learn how to be a Dungeon Master. I feel like it’s very relatable to not know exactly how to prepare for your first D&D campaign, let alone trying to figure out how to be the DM your very first time playing. Though I enjoyed watching Hazel figure it out, it was odd to me that Hazel’s parents were so into D&D and they never invited their kid into it, especially since her mother is the DM of the group. You think she would have been allowed to at least participate in the campaign or a new one to teach her the rules once she got older. But no, as a kid, she’s forced to sit upstairs alone with Max, the son of her parents’ friend. When Max moves back into town during Hazel’s senior year, that’s exactly what happens again.
“When did we go from being best friends to this, Max? Why don’t you start with that. Because I was heartbroken when you moved away, and it seems like you’re heartbroken to be back.”
It’s a little complicated because Max, though her childhood friend, is a member of the mortal enemies of the color guard—percussion. So it takes some convincing for her other friends to want to hang out with him for fun, let alone do their first D&D campaign ever with him, but Hazel manages to convince them. I’ve seen countless times in stories about D&D that people end up falling for the person roleplaying as their characters’ love interests. I’m still hoping for Boyce to implement that in one of her books in this series. I think that is another angle that could have worked really well in Rolls and Rivalry to integrate the parents’ friendship, conflict about Max’s parents, and D&D. If Hazel and Max had to work together in their D&D campaign, for instance—maybe they were split off from the other characters, and got in a dicey situation where romantic vibes spilled over—it could have worked to move D&D into the forefront. Another option is that maybe the parents kicked out Hazel and Max for arguing and that is the impetus to making their own campaign. Since they’re always duking it out, Hazel and Max could have competed to see who could recruit more people to the campaign from color guard and percussion or challenged each other over who was DM. Then, that tension could have transferred over into the color guard and percussion until their classmates started to suspect there was something more going on between Max and Hazel than just rivalry. Instead, it just felt to me like D&D was a box that needed to be checked, and there were countless other ways that it could have been implemented more organically within the narrative framework. It felt like trying to fit D&D into a color guard book than color guard into a D&D book, so to speak. Any of these hypothetical scenarios would have felt a little more natural to me then the kind of “world peace” between the color guard and percussion angle that was taken and implemented with little pushback from those involved.
“Anyway, when we are here, we aren’t representing color guard or percussion or clarinets. We’re not band members at all….We’re just five people who are going to role-play some characters, fight some monsters and hopefully have a good time.”
A lot of the other conflicts in Rolls and Rivalry felt unconvincing to me too. I realize these characters are in high school, so issues are obviously not going to be as serious with teenagers. But I think to high schoolers, it is that big of a deal, so the book should spend a certain amount of time on issues that crop up. But any kind of disagreement that is introduced is resolved far too quickly, like a bit of a sitcom. I’m going to try to keep this fairly vague to avoid spoilers, but, in one scene, Hazel has a long-awaited confrontation with another character. Hazel finally says something to express her displeasure with this character and she has an internal moment of, “wow, I cannot believe I was this disrespectful and spoke to her like that.” Instead of this being framed as a huge moment of character development for Hazel, the confronted character isn’t at all defensive or surprised. In fact, she instantly agrees with Hazel. Then she says she’s “sorry if” she made Hazel’s experience worse rather than better. (Sidenote: A significant amount of the apologies in this book were written as non-apologies and had me cringing. “Sorry if I made you feel that way,” is not actually taking accountability and I was aghast that all of the characters treated these exchanges as legitimate apologies.) This confrontation that was built up throughout Rolls and Rivalry was completely over a few paragraphs later with no hard feelings or repercussions whatsoever, so that was a bit of a letdown. Characters simply need to stew in their feelings longer for bigger emotional payoff.
“It’s impossible to hate you, Hazel. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
Other similar conflicts between characters are also finished almost as soon as they’re brought up, so it was hard for me to feel any concern or investment when I knew it would all work out with relative ease. Readers who are looking for uncomplicated happy endings will enjoy this, but I wanted to feel some more tension. It didn’t help matters for me that the other big disagreement of the book between Max and Hazel felt very unnecessary and like drama for drama’s sake in the eleventh hour. I think a better source of conflict between the two would have been if they had bonded through playing in their parents’ D&D campaign together or even if Max had tried to take over Hazel’s position as the DM. That would have added a different component to their rivalry rather than just their public performance as rivals from color guard and percussion, and given the book a stronger reason for tying in D&D at all. It would have felt less like D&D window dressing and more like actual D&D plot.
Regardless of how well D&D was implemented in a series revolving around D&D related romances, I did think Hazel was a relatable character. Her feelings of perfectionism and pressure from her parents are both things with which a lot of readers will be able to sympathize. The romance between Max and Hazel was sweet too. There is some cute banter that will surely have plenty of readers squealing and kicking their heels. Maybe I’m just jaded, but Max and Hazel’s relationship felt lower stakes to me than that of the couples in the other books. It just felt more puppy-love and surface-level to me, with less to lose than if things didn’t work out between them. It’s senior year after all, so if they don’t work out romantically, readers can assume they’ll just go their separate ways. Perhaps because I’m so into the “will-they-won’t-they” push and pull, that there simply wasn’t enough suspense to go around. With everything being resolved so easily, there just wasn’t much doubt in my mind that they’d end up together. Maybe another character competing for Hazel’s heart in the color guard might have helped add some more doubt about Hazel and Max ending up together—or maybe I’m just really into messiness and high stakes and that just isn’t here.
I know there are plenty of readers who will enjoy the straightforward high school romance, with some competitive streaks thrown in for some added flavoring. I guess I just want to suffer more along the way. Because of how the main conflict boils down to “I can’t have feelings for my childhood crush because he’s in percussion and I’m in color guard and no one will approve,” I do think Rolls and Rivalry reads like it is for a younger audience than the other novels. However, it has been a little while since I read the other books in the series, so my memory might be a little hazy. Nevertheless, I simply didn’t care for Hazel and Max’s relationship as much as I did with the other couples’ relationships in the other books, even though its got some heartwarming moments. I guess it’s no surprise that I really liked that the characters from the other entries in the series made cameos in this book. It was a really fun easter egg and one returning fans of the series will enjoy as well.
I also loved all of the references to other nerdy things like Catan and The Lord of the Rings. I’m a sucker for nerdy references during flirty, and like all of the books in this series, Boyce works them in a way that feels ordinary and special at the same time. It’s easy to see that the author is a true fan of all of the things she highlight in her novels and it’s delightful to see them mentioned so nonchalantly and naturally. Likewise, I think people who were in marching band or color guard will also really enjoy this representation. I had a lot of friends in the marching band in high school and they always looked forward to band camp, which was always referenced as a special bonding time that was remembered fondly. Maybe times have changed, but I remembered those same friends groaning in frustration whenever they brought up those memories only for someone to inevitably utter the words, “One time at band camp….” Boyce has done the band and color guard kids everywhere a service by giving an actual, positive account of what it was like to be a part of those camps and the community that grew from it. The true star of this book is truly the color guard, and that’s when it shines the most. Ultimately, Rolls and Rivalry could have worked without D&D, but it couldn’t have worked without color guard and percussion. With that expectation in mind, there’s plenty here for readers to enjoy.
Though Rolls and Rivalry didn’t work as well for me as the other novels in the series, it was still a light and fun read with familiar elements that I enjoyed. I was always happy to pick the book back up. Though I do wish the novel hadn’t pushed D&D into the background as much and had more of a serious major conflict, I do think the series as a whole is still really inspired and clearly a labor of love for the author. I am always excited to see in what new ways Boyce has implemented D&D and nerd culture into her books, and I hope she’ll keep writing more!
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Oh, too bad the D&D part felt tacked on. I love the marching band / color guard aspect of this premise, but I haven’t read any of the books in the series yet.
I agree! I actually don’t feel that it needed D&D at all and could have stuck to the color guard/percussion elements. But the series is still sweet and fun as a whole–you should definitely check it out! 🤭
My brother was huge into D&D with his friends in high school.
Anne – Books of My Heart